Cambitoglou Alexander, Papadopoulos John K., Jones Olwen Tudor (Eds.). Torone I: The Excavations of 1975, 1976, and 1978: Illustrations

Archaeological Society at Athens, 2001. — 308 p. — (Βιβλιοθήκη της εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 208).Torone seemed to be a fine archaeological site known also from the literary sources, and above all from Thucydides; but, would Torone be the best choice for a first Australian archaeological expedition in Greece? From the Vigla Torone looked too vast and complex a site for the human and financial resources available in Australia in the 1960s and so, later on, after inspecting Zagora on the island of Andros, I became convinced that that was a more suitable target for a young Australian team consisting of members with limited archaeological field-work experience. The decision was taken to excavate at Zagora, which culturally as well as logistically, seemed to represent a more manageable undertaking. Between the years 1967 and 1974 the Australian team worked at Zagora solidly in alternating digging and study seasons and when by 1975 it was felt that an adequate amount of information had been gathered about the Geometric town, the team, following some inevitable changes, moved to Torone and worked there continuously until 1995 with only one interruption in 1977, when it returned to Andros for a final study season.
The present volume presents to the specialists and the larger archaeological community the results of the first three digging seasons carried out in 1975, 1976 and 1978 and the first two study seasons in 1979 and 1980. In addition, and for the sake of unity, it presents the results of the limited work done at the Gate of the Hellenistic fortification system in 1981. One should also mention here that, for the sake of greater clarity, in some cases a few objects from later digging seasons (for example 14.378 and 14.420) have been included in this volume. Similarly, although the material from the later excavations is not dealt with in this book, the knowledge acquired in subsequent digging and study seasons has coloured the comments made in some of the chapters and especially in Chapter 1.